See also: last week's Linux in the news page.

Linux in the news

One of the best writeups we have seen on the Microsoft ruling is this article in The Times. "With free operating systems and productivity software now readily available to fulfil all of the critical functions of Windows and Office, PC manufacturers would long since have started offering cheap Microsoft-free computers, if only they could feel safe from retaliatory action of the kind detailed in Judge Jackson's findings." (Thanks to Guy Kirkwood).

Microsoft Loses - Linux Gains:

This article in CNNfn reports on the results of the Microsoft case: Microsoft is a monopoly. "...Microsoft's customers lack a commercially viable alternative to Windows." In other words, the judge found the "Linux defense" unconvincing. It will be interesting to see what the next step is... (Thanks to Dave Whitinger).

Here's a Red Herring article about Linux and the Microsoft ruling. "Despite the judicial branch's declaration that Microsoft is a monopoly, Linux firms must continue to innovate without isolating potential customers, says Lonn Johnston, North American operations vice president of Turbolinux, a Linux distributor based in Brisbane, California. 'You don't want to pick on Microsoft, because all your customers are running Microsoft,' he says."

This Reuters article looks at the general rise in Linux-related stocks in response to the Microsoft ruling. "'There's a huge interest in Linux. It's come out of nowhere to be white hot. Everybody's interested. Government agencies are interested in switching over. Whole countries are interested in switching over,' Corel Chief Executive Michael Cowpland told Reuters." See also the LWN Linux Stocks Page for a view of how stocks reacted today. (Thanks to Dave Whitinger).

Here's a News.com article about Monday's rise in Linux stocks. "But in the event that Microsoft is split up into two or more units, Applix and Corel might not see things in such a rosy light. Splitting off Microsoft Office software into a separate company raises the possibility that the new company could port its software to Linux since that company no longer would have chief loyalty to Windows."

The Ottawa Citizen looks at Corel's stock price surge. "But Tera Capital Corp. analyst Duncan Stewart said that even if Microsoft is eventually forced to divest itself of parts of its business, it will still be a potent competitor. 'If anything, Microsoft may have been holding back something against competitors while it awaited this decision,' said Mr. Stewart. 'If Microsoft brings out a Linux product (against Corel's soon-to-be-released product), it should sell very well.'"

This Salt Lake Tribune article looks at how the Microsoft ruling could affect Caldera Systems. "The ruling in the antitrust case could prevent Microsoft from pressuring companies not to make devices with Linux software sold by Caldera and other companies."

Salon Magazine writes about the Microsoft finding and Linux. "So -- should the government force Microsoft to release its source code? [Tim] O'Reilly shrugs: 'I think that's a terrible remedy -- no one would want it.'"

This article (in French) in Le Monde examines Linux in the light of the Microsoft ruling. It also looks at StarOffice. English text is available via Babelfish. (Found in Da Linux French Page).

ZDNet covers the Slashdot discussion on the finding that Microsoft is a monopoly. "Eventually these discussions degraded to 'flamebait' or a war of words."

This ComputerBits article is about Linux on the desktop. "Although Microsoft would like to have the judge in its antitrust trial believe that Linux poses a significant challenge to its desktop hegemony, that's nothing but posturing. Linux might compete (and successfully at that) with NT Server, but Linux and Windows 95/98 have so far staked out completely different turfs: Windows on the desktop, Linux in the server room."

Cobalt IPO:

News.com reports on the repricing of Cobalt Networks' IPO. "Increasing the price of IPO shares indicates strong demand by institutional investors, who make up the bulk of purchasers in first-time stock sales."

Also from News.com. "The shares, which were priced yesterday at $22, closed today at 128.13, a gain of 482 percent. Volume was heavy with nearly 11 million shares changing hands. The shares opened at 139, giving the company a market value of $3.79 billion--about 205 times its annualized sales this year."

Here's a Reuters article. "They've got all the magic words between appliances and Linux, but there is also some meat behind this. It's not just smoke and mirrors; it's a real business. We're seeing more and more of these companies moving away from ephermal dot.com businesses and getting into real businesses."

The Red Herring covers the Cobalt IPO. "In the latest chapter of the commercialization of the Linux operating system, the blue-hot arc of the Cobalt Networks (Nasdaq: COBT) initial public offering fried the first-day performance of rival Red Hat's (Nasdaq: RHAT) August IPO."

ZDNet gives this report. "Investors were bullish on Cobalt''s prospects given its ties to Linux and opportunity in the growing server appliance market."

The Motley Fool takes this look. "Despite its early success -- and this is not to say it isn't a great company -- Cobalt is a virtual start-up, and it's trying to grow in a new industry. It will have to generate some serious future cash flows to justify trading at these levels."

TheStreet.com ran this article and, in particular, looks at why Gateway chose not to exercise an option to buy a large pile of shares at the IPO price. "Could it be that the SEC viewed the Cobalt investment to be unseemly, seeing as Gateway was cut in just weeks before what obviously was becoming a hot IPO and just weeks after signing a reputation-enhancing supply deal with Cobalt?"

DVD Hack:

ComputerWorld talks to John Gilmore about the DVD hack. "Gilmore noted that until now, movies on DVD couldn't be played on Linux because the DVD Forum wouldn't release specifications for how to do it. He said that now, or in the near future, Linux users will be able to play DVDs, which he believes is entirely appropriate."

Wired News looks at the DVD crack. "It all happened because DVD playback software for Linux doesn't exist. There are numerous DVD playback utilities for Windows --WinDVD, ATI DVD, Compaq DVD, XingDVD -- but nothing, nada, zip for Linux players. And if there's one thing about Linux users, they're do-ers, not whiners."

Red Hat:

InfoWorld looks at Red Hat's expanded support offerings. "The new initiative, aimed at larger corporate accounts, will include several more open-source products. Eventually, company officials hope to support the applications of all those developers thoroughly committed to the open-source model."

Here's a Computer Reseller News article about Bob Young and Red Hat. "Through his efforts and evangelism, Young has brought his company in a short number of years from a small catalog operation to a well-known entity with a successful initial public offering."

Red Hat's Bob Young was briefly interviewed on this CNN Moneyline segment about the Microsoft ruling. Scroll about 1/3 down (or search) to find it. "...Judge Jackson's ruling is very useful to us. It creates opportunities for us in the market that, without a policeman in this marketplace, would not be available to us." (Thanks to Didier Legein).

The (Denver) Rocky Mountain News reports on eSoft's partnership with Red Hat. "'We believe Red Hat has established themselves as the dominant Linux provider in North America,' [eSoft CEO Jeff] Finn said."

Websites:

E-Commerce Times reports on new Linux sites on the web. "In the wake of the landmark ruling that branded Microsoft a monopoly, information and developer resource Web sites are moving into the market space for Linux-based solutions."

A new magazine called Enterprise Linux has popped up; it has started out with an interview of Jon 'maddog' Hall. (Thanks to Robert K. Nelson).

Business Week looks at Slashdot and founder Rob Malda. "With the sale of Slashdot to Andover.net, Slashdot has gone from being a hobby for Malda to being a business -- supported by online advertising. But Malda doesn't feel that he sold out. It's important to him that the company isn't aligned with any of the versions of Linux."

Reviews:

AboutLinux compares the performance of the Red Hat and Linux-Mandrake distributions on an AMD Athlon processor. "On some of the tests it was possible to see a slight performance advantage with Mandrake 6.1 (and a slight disadvantage in a couple of cases!) - but there were no 'earth shaking' performance differences between RedHat 6.0 and Mandrake 6.1."

PC World reviews the Corel Linux beta. "Unlike competing versions--and despite its unfinished state--the beta version of Corel Linux installs nearly hands-free. And if the features Corel promises for the final product (due in mid-November) come true, this new flavor of Linux may be nearly as easy to install and configure as Windows 98."

CPU Review has put up a new multi-distribution comparison, currently featuring OpenLinux 2.3, SuSE 6.2, and Linux-Mandrake 6.1. "The Mandrake desktop beat out SuSE and OpenLinux by a hair; mostly because Mandrake came with more window managers."

Other Business:

Computer Reseller News looks at the upcoming Cold Fusion release. "Allaire Corp. told more than 1,200 developers at its first user conference, held here, that it will ship ColdFusion 4.5 in December, with first-time support for Linux."

News.com reports on e-speak, which HP is releasing under the GPL. "E-speak is designed to find services and negotiate deals over the Internet. For example, e-speak on a cell phone could automatically search for the best rate to make a call and then handle payment..."

Network Computing finally caught up to the Cisco print system. "Aside from the obvious economics, Cisco's Ivereigh likes the flexibility of the open source code in Linux. It helped him and his team configure an integrated directory among the now-130 Linux print servers the company has spread around the globe, so every print server knows about every printer."

Here's an E-Commerce Times article about EBIZ's recent moves. "EBIZ recently established a non-profit group, The Linux Store Fund, Inc., which will allocate grants to support open-source development projects. Working with an initial $10,000 seed grant from EBIZ, the company will donate $1 from each online purchase toward the organization's fund."

Upside ran this article about Linux in embedded applications. "Never mind the fact that Linux, a cruiserweight in the PC class, looks more like a corpulent blob compared when lined up against the current crop of embedded operating systems. Many Linux developers are already shipping embedded versions of the operating system and they like their chances."

Linuxdevices.com has run an advocacy piece describing in detail the benefits of Linux in embedded applications. "Linux is a versatile and cost effective operating system for embedded systems It can be embedded in a surprisingly small system to handle simple tasks and scaled up to handle more complex tasks." (Thanks to Jacob Lehrbaum).

Sm@rt Reseller reports on Caldera's plans. "One of its new offerings will be a Linux-based, thin-server software offering, eServer, which can be used either on conventional servers or in network appliances. This, and more full-featured e-commerce-oriented packages on tap from the company, will use Java and Java Database Connector for e-commerce. That makes Caldera the first Linux company to make a major commitment to Java."

Doctor Dobb's Journal ran this rather technical article about interprocess communications in real-time Linux. "When dealing with real-time systems, the overhead of interprocess communications (IPC) becomes important. The formalized structures that are used in Linux for IPC can carry with them a significant amount of overhead. This can create timing problems for your applications."

News.com looks at the Apache XML project. "The xml.apache.org project is open to every developer or company, but Microsoft -- which has its own XML tools -- has not joined the effort."

Here's a News.com article about the new Linuxcare support deal with IBM. "The contract is a step ahead for Linuxcare, which is locked in a battle with Linux seller Red Hat and others to try to win a place as the preferred provider of Linux services for companies wishing to use or even customize the Unix-like operating system."

Computer Currents looks at Linux support plans. "I assumed a few alternate identities and tried Linuxcare's per incident service and purchased a support package for my fake business. In all cases, Linuxcare personnel responded in the time they promised. More important, they correctly resolved every simple and complex problem I threw at them."

Here's an article in Civic.com about how government shops are considering Linux. "With more and more hardware and software vendors coming out to support it, observers say Linux is worth considering, even for government agencies that have shied away from it in the past."

The Wall Street Journal reports on how Linux firms plan to make money. "Mindful of how the wind is blowing on Wall Street, Linux companies recently have been sidestepping the free-software problem by pitching themselves less as software companies and more as 'dot-coms.'"

TheStreet.com looks at upcoming Linux IPOs. "But just because a prospectus mentions Linux doesn't automatically make for a red-hot offering.... Inevitably, some of the companies could see their shares sink."

Wired News looks at the LinuxOne IPO filing. "...Red Hat software officials said they didn't see LinuxOne as a threat to their business or stock market cache [sic]."

News.com has run another look at the "windowing" patent issue. "Gartner Group analyst Dale Vecchio, who has been following the issue, said there appears to be plenty of instances where windowing has been mentioned or even used by companies. 'We believe there is overwhelming prior art,' Vecchio said. 'We have discovered prior art with IBM, who referred to the technique in pamphlets as far back as 1991.'" (See also LWN's feature article on this patent and the Linux kernel).

Finally:

Multimedium reports (in French) on Richard Stallman's talk at the Alternative Linux Conference in Montreal. Topics include "GNU/Linux," GNOME, KDE, and Amazon.com. English text is available via Babelfish. (Found in NNL).

Upside covers "burn all GIFs day". "'This is the first mass protest in history over a math algorithm,' boasted event organizer Doug [sic] Marti, who delivered the deadpan comment in front of an assembled group of five protesters, two reporters and two Unisys representatives."

LinuxPower has put up a tutorial article on how to download, build, and install a new kernel.

Technology Review has named the TR 100, "100 young innovators who exemplify the spirit of innovation in science, technology, and the arts." Included in the list are Miguel de Icaza and Linus Torvalds.

Linux In Brazil covers (in Portuguese) the year 2000 bug and Linux. English text is available via Babelfish.

This osOpinion article looks at the issue of software quality. "I'm certainly not saying that open-source is the only way to go, but what it has shown is that by giving programmers more breathing room, they'll want to create better software."

The open source community should be paying more attention to Apple, according to this osOpinion piece. "One day it hit me like a brick on the forehead. Apple isn't (in ANY way) the closed company it once was. As a matter of fact it's the most open platform on the market today short of Linux, and this only due to the GUI restrictions Apple put upon its OS."

Yahoo UK has this article which claims that GraphOn has managed to get Linux designated the "official OS of China." "GraphOn concedes however that the Chinese government is probably enthused by its server technology because it provides a simple way of keeping an eye on users' computer activity. 'It is all about control but it's not an ugly or a bad control, it's not a big brother sort of thing,' says [GraphOn VP] Ford." (Thanks to Peter Link). This appears to be only a rumor at this time. LWN has not been able to confirm this announcement yet.

ZDNet looks at FUD on both sides. "I'm getting a little tired of all of this. Let's get this straight: Microsoft tries to unfairly influence people all the time. Heck, here at Sm@rt Reseller we caught them red-handed stuffing our online survey ballot box on directory preferences with votes for Active Directory a few weeks ago. But, Linux advocates aren't exactly immune to shading the truth either."

Channel2000.com ran this installation nightmare story. In this one, however, the writer never seemingly got to install Linux. "As you can probably tell, my installation didn't go well. In fact, it hasn't been completed yet. I can't blame the problems on software or documentation. The only suggestion I have is for a new label on the software -- 'Warning: The most dangerous thing about this software is the idiot holding the box.'"

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

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